


Definition of Magic for the Uninitiated.

by Leni



Category: Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
Genre: Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-27
Updated: 2012-08-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 00:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/497199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Medlock is a watchful housekeeper. Mary/Dickon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Definition of Magic for the Uninitiated.

**Author's Note:**

> _Written for PrettyBird at[Help Haiti](http://help_haiti.livejournal.com)_

One cannot resent a child for doing the impossible, you think. You are nursing a much needed cup of hot tea on a spring afternoon, little more than a month since Mr. Craven returned home, as he claimed, for a permanent basis, and your thoughts are interrupted by three loud voices barging in. 

No, you cannot resent that child. Instead, you are thankful to her for the welcome respite now that Master Colin sleeps through the night without those awful cries, and you try to understand why that half-wild girl - that same child who stood with limp hair and disinterested eyes at the London train station - now runs across the kitchen, upsetting chairs and trays and almost making you lose your grip on your mug, with Master Colin and Mrs. Sowerby's boy following close after her.

"You get her, Dickon!" Master Colin screams from the doorstep connecting to the yard, needing a moment to catch his breath.

You swallow back the question about his health. You are not the children's favorite, you know, but you are not paid to be. Mr. Craven trusts you to watch over his son, and now his niece, and so you do. You don't ask your charge to rest and take a break _because_ you have learned at last to keep an eye on the three of them. Here is one thing you have learned over the last few weeks: Master Colin, difficult, quick-tempered child in sickness or in health, will gather his strengths in another moment and run off to the others; and should anyone wonder about his health, he'll glare up at any grown up in that new imposing way his cousin taught him and claim that 'magic' hadn't failed him yet.

"Medlock?"

You pretend not to be surprised by the direct address. "Yes, Master Colin?"

The boy is watching out the door, his eyes fixed on the two who are still playing in the dark. He may be the same age as Mary and younger than Dickon, but years of encyclopedias and history books have made him wiser in the ways of the world. "It's a pity that Dickon can't become my cousin, isn't it? That way, we could stay in this house forever."

Flustered, you aren't sure if he wants sympathy (as he so often used to want), or to be told that he is wrong (as he has learned to accept), or to hear that the Sowerby boy can one day, if not family, become the closest to it. You've heard of Mr. Craven's fledgling plans; once things have calmed down and a governess's services secured, Dickon will be invited to share his friends' classes. "That is assuming this house will survive Miss Mary's games," you scowl instead. You give a nod towards the door, all but ushering him away. "Go and play, Master Colin. The doctor says you can't get enough time on your own two legs, but if you feel faint…." There, you add that measuring look that calculates for how long those thin legs can keep moving, and if he has used up that time.

There is that glare. "I'm _fine_ , Medlock," and he runs away.

"Children and their games," Cook laughs. "Our Dickon at the family table, indeed! With his squirrels an' his birds an' his pet wolf! Oh, such a sight that'd be!" The woman almost bellows, holding her belly as she laughs harder.

They are just children, you remind yourself. With a children's understanding of the world, no matter how well-read. But the young master walks again thanks to the other two, and you remember the girl you picked up, all sullen and dry - that girl would never have brought about such a change on her own.

_That Dickon boy is something else._

It's the first time you have this thought about one of Mrs. Sowerby' children, but it won't be the last.

 

*

 

It's been eight years since Miss Mary first arrived to the manor, and as you stand at the door to greet the young lady of the house (as Mr. Craven never remarried and Master Colin hasn't shown any interest in marriage yet, the role must fall on her), you see something in the girl that is unknown and at the same time, familiar.

It takes you three days to recognize it.

You wait until Miss Mary is in the breakfast room to go into her rooms. "Martha?" When the girl, a young woman by then, had to choose between a local boy's proposal and becoming Mary's personal maid, Martha chose the only way a moor girl might have the chance to see the world. "What's happened to that girl?"

Eighteen years old or ten, Miss Mary is always 'that girl' in private. That girl who'd waited for strangers to collect her at a muddy train station, and who'd looked at you with the eyes you'd see again in soldiers come home. The same look she bears now, and that will not do. A half-wild child must stay a half-wild child, after all. You did not throw your arms to the heavens and give up on making a proper young lady out of her just for the war to rob her unfettered enthusiasm.

"Martha?"

"Ah, it's the first time we are gone to London since…." Martha shudders, the hands that were folding a nightgown stopping their work for a moment. "You know."

You do. The last years have left their mark everywhere, even in the moor where too many youngsters and young fathers never returned for a new spring. "Go on."

"It wasn't the city. No. But all those fine people Miss Mary had known before - Miss Mary's friends, still in black over this fiancé or that brother. All those boys she'd danced with, back when Mr. Craven threw that ball after her come out, remember? The few that were still alive, all were hurt one way or the other - and the look in their eyes. Oh, Mrs. Medlock, I never thought rich people could get that look, too."

"And Miss Mary?" you insist. There must be more. The moor hasn't lacked grief and death, and that girl's eyes still danced when she dressed herself for a walk through the gardens.

"Well. You know her. She went consolin' all those people, tellin' the little stories about _that garden_ , tryin' to make them smile and forget for a moment, more like it. Then, one of those boys laughed. A horrible sound, that laugh." Martha stops, her own eyes sad. "Can't blame him, really. Poor thing had lost a leg, and him barely older than her. 'Do tell me, Miss Lennox,' he said when he finally finished that laugh, 'how much of your magic will it take for _me_ to walk?' The others tried to hush him, they did, and the cousins who'd brought him gave their excuses not five minutes later, but…."

But Miss Mary, loud, energetic and vivacious as she was, has never learned that her 'magic' doesn't work outside the garden where it'd been born. "I see."

Martha nods. "She asked Mr. Craven for permission to come back that night at dinner. Poor thing has barely said a word." She walks to the closet, whether to pick out a walking dress or so she won't have to face you while saying what she says next. "I think I'll write to my brother. Yes. Mum says his arm still needs rest, but he'd want to be here. Miss Mary needs a willing ear, and maybe a shoulder to cry on. Yes, I think I'll write him a note."

Dickon Sowerby at the manor again. With both Master Colin and Miss Mary gone, he's had no reason except the odd request for one of the library's picture books. Mr. Craven filled the library with them when he realized that the twelve-year-old was a slow reader (that was before Master Colin tired of being last in their races, and started taking books to _that garden_ so that he'd have something to teach Dickon, too).

Once every week or so, one of the littlest Sowerby children will deliver a note with a title in flowing script along with the book from the week before. Dickon hasn't returned to his job, though Mrs. Sowerby confided that he could barely stay quiet with the cast in place. Doesn't matter; as long as he has the use of his right hand, his post at the grounds has been assured by Mr. Craven himself. 

It's well deserved.

Dickon is the one who cut wood for the Taylors when Mr. Taylor and his oldest left, he's the one who made old Mrs. Teed smile after losing three of her sons, and Dickon is the only young man you've heard whistle when you crossed paths in town. More important yet, he was the one whom the young master visited on his short - and only - stay at the manor after he returned from the front, and you had been relieved that some of the fire in your boy's eyes had returned after that visit.

"You do that, Martha. Write him."

The younger woman is surprised, but you are already leaving the room. It is fitting that Dickon Sowerby would return to the manor. Whenever one of Archibald Craven's children - by blood or by tragedy - has been hurt, it is that child of the moor who's healed them.

That's the kind of history that should repeat itself.

 

*

 

It's the start of a new decade. New hopes and dreams.

It's fitting that the manor should be dressed for a wedding at such a time.

"Medlock."

You turn around, about to scold the young master for being in the kitchen when it's chaos with knives, forks and too many breakables. He is grinning, though, as he hasn't since he enlisted the last year of that dreadful war. "Yes, Master Colin?"

"Do you hear?"

He is staring out the kitchen door, and for a moment you wonder if he's seeing three children chase each other across the yard. For a moment, under the cacophony of Cook's impatient roars and half a dozen hurried assistants, you also hear the laughter of those children, the giddy screams as one is caught and the game must be started again. You smile, remembering another morning in almost the exact positions; you can almost taste the dark tea on your tongue. "It seems we'll all stay in this house together, after all."

The young master looks down at you, and that shatters the illusion of the thin boy he'd been. He is smiling, too. "Ah, Medlock. We never knew you believed in Magic, too."

For the first time in a decade, it occurs to you that this supposed magic has another name.

Happiness.

"We might not have been so bad if we'd known," Master Colin continues, the smile turning into that mischievous little smirk you learned to dread when he was fourteen, the one that's busy thinking of new ways to use the secret corridors. "Then again, we might have been even worse."

If the distance between the master's son and housekeeper weren't so defined, you would give him an earful. Of course, this morning the master's adopted daughter will be marrying a gardener - the best in the region, but still. "You mind that tongue, boy," you tell him, loud enough that the closest assistant almost chops off her finger instead of the fish's head. "You're not so old that you can't use a good strapping now and then."

He chuckles, since both of you know that the only instructor who dared put a hand on him was dismissed before the class was over. "I apologize, Medlock," he says, that glint still in his eye. "I come in Mary's stead. Poor Martha is a mess, in hysterics because she says it isn't proper that the sister work for the brother's bride - no matter how much the bride scoffs at that. Mary asks that you talk some sense into Martha before her own throat is too raw to repeat her vows."

You blink. "She's asked for help?"

Master Colin laughs. "More like demanded it." Taking her arm, he walks her to the main stairs, gives her a warm smile of encouragement. "Run, Medlock, run. Before poor Dickon has the contrariest wife that England has ever seen."

You don't run.

But for the first time since you were hired by Mr. Craven, you are tempted to skip.

 

The End  
08/03/10


End file.
